http://www.detnews.com/specialreports/2001/kronk/sunlead/sunlead.htm The little Kronk gym on Detroits battered southwest side spawned more than 50 amateur champions, more than 120 titles, three Olympic gold medalists, and established a boxing dynasty whose fame would spread worldwide. Twenty-seven of those boxers went on to the pros under the tutelage of Hall Fame trainer Emanuel Steward, winning 40 world championships and more than $150 million in prize money. But there is another Kronk Boxing Club story. It is a story told by an unmarked grave in a closed city cemetery, final resting place of Bernard Superbad Mays, one of the greatest fighters in Kronk history, who died at 33, penniless and alcoholic. It is a story told in a west side Detroit church last August, when mourners wept as world champion boxer Milton McCrory knelt by the casket of his kid brother, Olympic champion Steve McCrory, who pawned his gold medal and wasted away in poverty from an undisclosed illness. It is a story told in the killing of Duane Thomas, former world super-welterweight champion, shot to death last summer on a graffiti-covered Detroit sidewalk in a small-time drug dispute. Boxing traditionally has been a way off the streets and out of poverty for many. However, the temptations it can attract and hard-knock personal backgrounds have taken a chilling toll on Kronk fighters. Tragedy and misfortune ranging from prison terms, to murder and drug addiction have touched a third of the original 61 Kronk boxers Steward built into a world powerhouse in the 1970s and 80s, mystifying boxing experts even as they marvel at the Detroit clubs accomplishments.
Its a gym in a shithole neighborhood in a shithole section of a shithole city, of course this is going to happen.
Great article. Unfortunate what happened to DuJuan Johnson i seen that guy challenge Aaron Pryor back in 81 when he was just 20 yrs old. That was one hell of a fight, a very entertaining slugfest. Duane Thomas was pretty good too i recall him knockout Mugabi in one round although he Mugabi claimed he had been thumbed.
great article. im more inclined to say it was the street toughness and the pressure that made these men lawful or not. also ricky womack commited suicide almost a year after this article...a very slight irony there. but sad non other less it would be a good documentary. also the amount of brothers in this...tommy hearns has 5 brothers!!! all of them kronkers themselves? one being an unbeaten lightwight. i think thomas's 'illness' was aids but that is only me thinking in the sense that in the 70's aids was thought of as a desease for gays and heroin addicts....so maybe aids...also a posibility he was an addict himself and his family wanted to keep it away fromthe public. a reason why he didnt get out much either. also it's a nice slice of life as we know mark breland, ricky womack and stevie mcCrory...which is incredible 3 undefeated top rankers just bowling round tokyo?!?!?!?! if they were walking down the street in my direction, im crossing the road jumping the fence and walking on the other side of the road a block away
I live in the D, and Kronk gym has been closed for about a year. They box in a suburb now. I will be boxing there in August!
